Senators Move To Add Restrictions To Unemployment Benefits

A Senate subcommittee took the first steps of approval on two bills Tuesday that would require workers to take a drug test before gathering unemployment benefits and to do 16 hours of community service to continue getting benefits after six months.

Department of Employment and Workforce Director Abraham Turner testified that making both provisions a condition of receiving benefits might violate federal law, and said he would prefer the drug tests be administered when a person applies for a job. He also said the community service requirement would fall in line with laws if it were optional.

Now, when employers drug tests applicants who are claiming unemployment insurance and they test positive, they are supposed to report it to DEW and the person’s benefits are suspended.

The bill would require new applicants to pay for a drug test, which Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, estimates would cost about $8, and then have the cost reimbursed on their first unemployment checks if they test negative. Those who test positive would have to wait 20 weeks before applying again or undergo a treatment program.

There is no estimate of how much the tests would cost the state, but Bryant thinks it would balance out with money saved that would have gone to people using drugs.

A similar Florida law requiring welfare recipients to get drug tested was blocked by a federal judge last October because it could violate the Constitution’s search and seizure rules.

But Bryant, who chairs the subcommittee and is a sponsor on both bills said he would not make decisions based on “liberal activist judge that’s gonna throw it out.” He said he’d be willing to challenge the federal government on both bills, and that the state shouldn’t waste time or money on people who aren’t ready to work because they use drug, and that asking for some community service puts and end to people being “paid to not work.”

“It encourages the employee to be productive. It encourages them to get out into the community,” Bryant said. “This will definitely help their job searching, it helps them with job referrals. It shows the employer upon hiring, hey this person is being productive, they really want work.”

Opponent Sue Berkowitz, the director of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center, said it worries her that lawmakers are spending time pursuing one bill that wastes unemployed workers’ meager assistance on involuntary volunteering, and another that has already been deemed unconstitutional and demeans people on top of it.

“If you are a 55-year-old woman who has worked in a mill your entire life, you go to church every Sunday, you tithe, you do everything and have been a good person and suddenly you’re being told you lost your job because the business closed down or didn’t need as many people, and you know what, we want to make sure you’re not using drugs. I don’t know that that’s what we want to tell and say to the people of South Carolina.”

She said not only does it demoralizing the unemployed to treat them as though they have a drug problem, but it’s untrue according to about three months of data from Florida, which showed only 2 percent of the unemployed had drugs in their system, as apposed to 8.7 percent of the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

As for the mandatory community service, Berkowitz runs a nonprofit, and said it takes time and money to properly train even free volunteers and that it’s difficult to invest in someone if they won’t be sticking around. Plus, in many counties volunteer opportunities are few and far between, even compared to jobs. She said it would be unfair to penalize those people because their skills don’t match up with available community service.

The bill does also allow for community service at local and state government agencies in need of help.

Tiffany West of Columbia has been unemployed for six months and echoed some of Berkowitz’s testimony that doing two full days of community service is a burden on some people struggle to get by on unemployment benefits.

West has two young daughters, ages 2 and 4, who she watches while she job hunts online. She said when she worked as a hostess at Chick-Fil-A the majority of her paychecks went to childcare, but now the unemployment check she gets by on are half her former salary. She said she likes the idea of giving back to her community, but that the money volunteering would cost her could be better spent on childcare, transportation and a sharp suit for a job interview.

“I still have children to care for and bills to pay so I would feel a little exploited because I’ve worked since I was 14 and these unemployment benefits, I feel as though I’ve already earned in a way in paying my taxes,” West said.

She said if the volunteer positions were guaranteed to become either temporary or full time jobs the bill might be helpful to South Carolina’s jobless, but that as is, it would hurt her wallet without the hope of employment.

Both bills will be discussed at a full committee hearing Thursday.

Bryant said he thinks they will make it to the Senate floor, where they stand a 50/50 chance of getting passed on to the House.

He did note that he thinks 16 hours of community service isn’t enough, but that anything higher would make the bill more difficult to pass.